


After The War

by terminallyCosplay



Series: October Verse [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 1000 Paper Cranes, Amputee, College AU, Dealing with life after the war, JOHN LAURENS IS ALIVE THO, M/M, Modern AU, PTSD, Slam Poetry, War, october verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:39:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8847178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallyCosplay/pseuds/terminallyCosplay
Summary: Somewhere along the line, the boys find themselves in war, and none of them get out whole. It takes a long time to recover. The four of them settle on a project. The four of them need to heal. After most of the fall is spent apart, they come back together again in October. There’s a lot of healing to do, there’s too much hurt to talk about. This fic takes place after Should be Loved and Blue October.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a serious fic and it deserves a serious introduction from me. I'm not pussyfooting around with PTSD or how the characters react and grow with each other. This is the second of the three major fics I've planned in this arc for OctoberVerse. Three will be much nicer. It deals with some things seriously and therefore, I'm addressing them seriously. This fic is a set of chapters explaining how John, Alex, Hercules, and Gilbert are dealing with a war that they may not have agreed with, but still find themselves fighting.

There are things to talk about that no one will mention. There’s hell to pay, there’s bills to pay. Not all choices made in life are easy, or the wanted outcome. Somethings just need working through. There was a time when problems were simpler. Regret turns to nostalgia, Nostalgia turns sour over the course of time.

It starts as a sort of chain reaction; things start falling apart quickly after that. It breaks into a staccato, and the rhythm of life changes so quickly around them that there is no eye of the hurricane to rest in. They’re in the storm, and all they can do is hold on and hope for clear skies again. Gone are the days of first dates, first snows. Gone are the days of firsts between them. Life buckles beneath them, leaving destruction in its wake. They exist as a lifeline to each other now, hoping that scars between them heal over enough.

There were sets of fear that they hoped would ease over the years, some as Gilbert started working to become a US Citizen. Lafayette’s green card doesn’t follow through. He has to head back to France. There’s no way to save it. This is step one to the world ending. His parting is ugly and emotional. They vow to fight to get him back to America, and he hopes for the best as his heart and world are breaking around him.

Hamilton’s college aid dries up while they're fighting for Lafayette to return to America. There’s one way out, he hates it, there’s no avoiding it. He briefly talks about picking up more work, but the strain is too much, tuition and rent too high for him. He sees one way out.

He enlists. He chokes down, knows that the G.I. Bill will pay for a fat chunk of his law school, and that’s all there is too it. He tries to convince the others it’s okay, he’ll be stateside. Sooner or later, he’d be able to be back with John again after a few months of training and his first assignment. John vows to go wherever he goes. The weight of that promise will drive them to the edge.

His orders come up; he’s going to ship out. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. Alexander Hamilton will see war before it is through. He had hoped against it. Wars needed to be just to him, and he saw no justice in this one.

John enlists as well. He refuses to let Hamilton go alone. He ignores all pleas and requests. He states that he’s never listened to any of them before, why should that suddenly change now? He enlists, he requests to go to the war as well. Hamilton is powerless to stop him. Hercules is powerless to stop him. Lafayette is an ocean away, and he barely can get in contact with them, miserably trying to get his way back into the states and to the family he loves. John reminds Alex of his promise far too often for Hamilton to feel comfortable.

Hercules is drug in too before too long after. Two of them are surprised, Lafayette is not. Hercules had been forced to have a "real career, a real job, a real future" before he went to fashion. He hated every minute of his years studying computers and information. He doesn’t like admitting how good he is with technology, suddenly it’s a matter of national security. He’s sent a request and told that he’s paramount to the war effort and needs to go and enlist. He does, because he’s always wanted to see the world. He really goes because he realizes that he might be able to save his friends lives if he does. Risk and reward. He might crack the code, he might find something that can save any of them. It’s easy to swallow his pride for them.

They don’t talk about it. Their reasons for going into the war are erased into the past. They’re past it, they’re okay. As long as no one mentions it.

John’s shipped out a week before Hamilton. The two of them are in the same battalion, the same company. They’re down to the same squad. Hamilton is a tactical genius, through and through. Not only that, but his ability to ration and trade is amazing. He picks up not only the language, but he gets down to different local dialects. He’s that good. John is nowhere near that, but John has amazing courage. He’s a munitions expert, and he’s soon given a lot of footwork. Lafayette enlists too, calls it his national duty. No one calls him on his pride. Especially when he ends up with them. The three of them are together, and soon, they’re working side by side with _the_ General. They couldn’t get any higher in the ranks unless they were fighting side by side with the Commander and Chief. They form the tight knit inner circle around the command. Hamilton stays near him. Hamilton is his aide. Hamilton is his right hand man. Laurens and Lafayette are given French and American troops to command. They’re young, brash, reckless. They survive.

Hercules is locked away in intelligence. He may never see battle in his life. He hopes he never has to, but his heart hurts when he thinks of them out there. They’re all in the same secret. No one knows that they’re all together. They don’t know Lafayette is dating Hercules, that he and Laurens are together, that Hamilton and Laurens are also together. It’s better that way, easier. When they get leave, they sneak off for a day together and be as in love as they want. There’s never enough leave. There’s too much war. The war is embedded in them after all. Most days alone are spent curled into each other, kissing each other. They check over each other, hoping that there’s nothing too permanent on their bodies as they hope to recover after the war.

There’s a lot of devastating things that happen. There’s a lot of hurt, there’s a lot of anger and bitterness over what can pass in a year. There’s too much to bear. When it’s time for them all to come home, they come home at different times. Laurens comes home first. He’s painfully alone. Hamilton comes home shortly after. Hercules comes home next. Lafayette’s green card is figured out. They can finally be together again. They come back, and nothing is the same as it was before. It’s not okay, that’s for sure. They make it work somehow.

They have to make it work out.

Laurens and Hamilton are the first to start writing it out.

Laurens captures it beautifully. He gives himself three chapters to talk about the war. He gives himself the preamble, the interlude, the Epilogue. He gets three verses to explain who he is and what has befallen them during the past year of service. He claims it as the only year of service he’ll ever see, and no one will hold it to him. No one’s going to push it against him, hold him down by it. He loved slam poetry before, and when he comes back to it, it’s as if the very definition of slam poetry was written around him.

Alexander Hamilton, in all of Hamilton’s glory, gives himself essays. Laurens asks him how he’s going to get it out, to put it up, to express and communicate himself. Hamilton proclaims he gets 20,000 thousand words to spit out, to spew.

“Suck out the poison, suck out the poison,” he mumbles as he claims his 20,000 words set out.

He never settles on the format or anything, and he mumbles once or twice over the math about how many tweets he could send with it. The math is never solid as he doesn’t settle on what words to use. He doesn’t want to limit how long his words are in it. No one is really surprised when Hamilton doesn’t stay within his own limit.

When it comes to Hercules, he gives himself 12 dresses to express the experience of how he felt during their war.

Lafayette says his therapy is in seeing his friends finally getting into healing, that that is all he ever wanted them to do.

They notice how his habits change. They notice how he picks up instruments, and how he learns.

While Lafayette says he isn’t finding an outlet, Laurens finds out that he’s getting himself three degrees to work through the pain, and that is good enough. He starts making paper cranes. He starts taking photographs. He settles out his finances.

There are many ways to heal after a war, and they all do it separately, even if it’s all together. Lafayette holds on tight to his beliefs, he holds on tight to himself as he tries to sort out where he belongs. His patriotism changed, his duty is to his friends and to people more than to a flag. That is alright.

Hamilton is more than ever convicted to be a lawyer. He has lists of laws that need changing or abolished. He has hundreds of essays about movements, about causes, about things that need clarification. He works for the common man, he loves it.

Hercules goes back to fashion. His clothes now have a hard edge to them after the war. He designs still around his friends, he needs them to see him and be okay as well. He works with only greys. Every now and then a color will slip in.

Laurens is the most changed. There’s a part of him that died in the war, there’s no denying it. There’s something powerful and hurting him, and that’s the hardest part to get through. They don’t treat him with kids gloves. They don’t treat him as if he’s glass.

Things are explosive at first. Things are solemn. John goes back to South Carolina for three weeks. Lafayette goes to Quebec and relaxes there for a while before going to see the world. Hamilton, who had nothing left for him in the Caribbean, goes to Scotland to try working through himself. He spends two weeks there before returning to their flat. Hercules goes off on an internship with a designer in Milan. He’s away from the war enough it doesn’t hurt.

The four of them get back together as it edges closer to Laurens’s birthday again. Laurens is the most changed. They don’t talk, they don’t speak for a while.

“Who starts?” Lafayette asks as he looks around the small kitchen table.

The soldier from Lafayette has given himself a thousand pictures, a thousand cranes, a thousand words in new languages.

Laurens gets three poems.

Hercules Mulligan gets twelve dresses.

Hamilton gets 20,000 words.

Laurens takes a deep breath as he sets his beer bottle down on the table.

“I’ll start, if you help me find a place. I want to start, if you’ll help me?”

He’s thin, he’s wide eyed and haunted. His freckles pop against scars. Hamilton wants to trace and kiss every one of those. He reaches over, squeezing his hand.

“Of course, baby. Anything for you,” Hamilton says.

There’s a venue in line, and Laurens pays the expense for it. It’s simple. The four of them in a theater. A microphone, a camera, a spotlight. Laurens has it wrapped together. They have dinner before heading out. Laurens wraps his hand around his cane as he heads into the theater. It clicks on him, and he takes a long time.

“I’m hoping- I’m really hoping, that after tonight? It’ll get better somehow,” Laurens admits to them.

Hamilton nods.

Laurens takes his time getting on the stage. They have it to themselves- the manager doesn’t ask, as he looks at them. He simply lets them in.

“If you need anything, I’ll be in the office,” he stated, smoothing back his raven ponytail before heading off and leaving them.

Laurens takes long time. No one holds it against him. He takes a deep breath, wrapping his hand around his microphone. His hair is ethereal in this moment. He looks so wonderful in that light, that for a moment nothing is real, and Alexander Hamilton is sure that he’s just staring at an angel and that they both must be dead.

It’s only for a moment, then John starts speaking. The Angel of Death is still a haunting image in his head throughout what is to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a hard one to write. Kudos and Comments are greatly appreciated, especially when the format is so different than what I write.


End file.
